Tuesday

Aug 7, 2018 at 9:59 AMAug 7, 2018 at 9:59 AM

LOS ANGELES — The escape of two prisoners and a forbidden prison love story at New York’s Clinton Correctional Facility created a media firestorm in 2015. Three years later, it’s getting a little more attention from the camera.

Premiering Nov. 18 on Showtime, “Escape at Dannemora” is an eight-hour limited series charting the story of two convicted murderers who used a woman working in their prison, whom they both had a romantic relationship with, to break out and lead authorities on a three-week chase.During a panel discussion Monday at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, executive producer and director Ben Stiller joined cast members Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano, who play the real-life convicts, and Oscar-winner Patricia Arquette, who plays their accomplice.

Executive producers and writers Brett Johnson and Michael Tolkin began writing the series five days into the prison break in 2015, but made some significant revisions over the years, particularly after Stiller signed on, as more information about the stranger-than-fiction story were discovered.

With that factual foundation, the team met with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year and gained approval to shoot on location inside the actual prison, as well as the small town of Dannemora that surrounds it.

The prison offered a unique entry point to the role for Dano, who reaped inspiration from the reality of the location, right down to the smell of the facility and the people who populate it.

“There is no more essential piece of research or preparation than taking a tour of Clinton Correctional Facility,” he said.Stiller was out of the country during the intense nationwide coverage of the escape, but through research found it to be a fascinating story of the human condition.

“The more you delve into the story, the realities are so interesting,” he said. “I wanted to try to portray the reality of prison. The reality of what life is like for the people working there. The kind of ecosystem of it and how something like this happens.”

Arquette, who had to work with a dialect coach to nail her character’s specific accent, said she was drawn to the character because of what it presented her as an actress.

“I started off as an ingenue, as a young actress, and that is a certain kind of story and the certain limitation of a box,” she said. “And then I played mothers. But to be able to do character work and explore human sexuality, as a middle-aged woman without the kind of body Hollywood is used to, I thought it was an interesting conversation to have.”

The show is definitely a drama, but it is laced with elements of humor that are intentional, Stiller said, but also born of the too-bizarre-to-be-true nature of the story. That balance is something del Toro credits to the writing.

“There is something that tickles you and makes you laugh,” del Toro said. “But it’s not really funny. It’s (real). It’s on the page.”

— Reporter Hunter Ingram can be reached at 910-343-2327 or Hunter.Ingram@StarNewsOnline.com. Hunter is a member of the Television Critics Association.

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